Of Sleep, Nightmares, and Friends
by Muffy the Dough Slayer
Summary: They don't plan to start sleeping together. It just sort of happens one night. Or, Cisco and Barry have nightmares after the events of season 1, and find comfort in each other. Pre-slash, Cisco/Barry. FlashVibe. Accidental Pre-Relationship, kind of. Mostly just friendship.


**A/N:** I wrote this long before I started 'I've Got Soul but I'm Not a Soldier'. It has the same writing style and everything. Also, if you have read IGSBINAS, and were wondering how Barry freaked Len out one time after they had sex due to being out of it with hunger and whatnot, then it's pretty much kind of like what happens here.

I felt there weren't enough Cisco/Barry stories out there, and I do like this pairing as well. So, I started this, then got up the nerve to try writing Len, and then I got wrapped up in IGSBINAS. But, this did technically come first, so I'm sorry if there are inconsistencies with character and everything, as this was my very first attempt.

This was originally supposed to be longer, at least by another 5k or so, and actually lead into a relationship and everything... but I haven't written on it in weeks and I can't really think of how to continue, so I'm just leaving it as is for now. Sorry.

Anyway - enjoy :) Reviews are absolute love! :D

Oh, and this is like pre-slash, mostly. So, yeah. Friends to pre-slash I guess. Whatever xD

Story length: 5315

Begin!

* * *

 **Of Sleep, Nightmares, and Friends**

They don't plan to start sleeping together.

It just sort of happens one night.

"Come on, dude, one more game," Cisco says with a smile, but there's something behind his eyes Barry is… surprisingly familiar with. It looks a lot like fear.

"You said that last game," he comments offhandedly, stretching as he yawns. "I have to work tomorrow, and so do you."

They both work for CCPD, after all; Cisco works with Joe as part of the meta-human task force, and Barry is, well… Barry. CSI. Forensics. He gets a cool lab coat.

It's already three in the morning. If they're lucky, they'll get six hours of sleep.

He can be home in less than a second.

Cisco frowns. "One more?"

He keeps saying that, after every game they play.

"There's only so much zombie slaying I can take in one night," Barry says, eying his friend curiously. There are dark rings around Cisco's brown eyes. It's something he noticed earlier, but ignored. Now he checks over his friend again.

Cisco is more dark complexed than anything, but he looks rather pale now, which is saying something for him. His eye are also darting around nervously, which isn't really like him at all.

Barry sighs. Ignoring this isn't an option anymore.

"Alright, spill," he says, "what's really going on with you?"

Cisco looks perfectly offended. "What do you mean?"

 _Please, like I don't know when you're hiding something._

They've been friends for a while, after all. Roughly a year. Iris will always hold a special place in his heart, but she's like his sister now; Cisco, though… Cisco might be his best friend.

"Tell me," Barry says.

Cisco remains quiet.

 _Alright, gonna be like that, huh?_

"Alright, then I'll see you at work."

It's a bit of a low blow, but it proves him right when Cisco's gaze snaps back toward his face as Barry stands to leave. In half a second he could be gone. Cisco's fingers are suddenly tight around his wrist as the dark-haired man says, "Wait!"

"Tell me," Barry says, relaxing his posture enough that Cisco also loosens his hold, no longer worried Barry will just immediately dart out of there. Not that Barry would just leave him like that, but still.

"I just…"

And now Cisco looks embarrassed, and a little downtrodden. His head bows, and his gaze lowers. His fingers fall away from Barry's wrist.

"Just…?" Barry prompts after a moment of silence.

He tells himself to be patient, but he hasn't been sleeping well lately and he's tired, and he has to get up in six hours. Plus, with super speed, it's really very hard to be patient. The seconds are too long.

Cisco sighs heavily, defeat written in his posture. His shoulders droop. "I've been having nightmares. I know – it's stupid."

Barry frowns, watching his friend for a moment. "Nightmares?"

"Yeah… About… How, uh, _Eobard_ killed me, in that… timeline you erased."

He sounds so hesitant.

Barry sighs. Cisco can tell him anything. He shouldn't feel hesitant.

"I thought… you were over that?" he asks his friend, because that was a while ago. Months ago. And he thought that was in the past. Like everything else.

"I was," Cisco says, "but ever since the Singularity… the dreams have started back up again. Only when I'm sleeping, though," he's quick to point out, with a weak little laugh.

He's hiding something again. Before, he said he would sometimes get the dreams of Wells – _Eobard_ – killing him when he was _awake_. But Barry's too tired to go down a long line of conversation right now. He might have super speed, and can run a lot without getting too winded, but that doesn't mean he's immune to exhaustion.

"So you're having nightmares," Barry sums up. "And you're afraid to go to sleep."

"I know. It's stupid," Cisco mutters.

"Does anything help?"

"I don't know… Not really. It's almost every night now."

It explains why he looks so tired.

"I have nightmares too," Barry confesses, and Cisco finally looks at him again.

"You do?"

"Of course I do," he says. "I held my mom while she died; I see that every time I sleep."

Cisco winces. "Yours are so much worse than mine."

"Don't be silly. Mine aren't better or worse than yours. A nightmare is a nightmare. It's a fear response in the body, it can't be helped. You went through something traumatic, and so did I."

"You sound like Caitlin," Cisco says with a faint smile.

Barry sighs. "I miss her."

"Me too, dude. She's doing well at Mercury Labs, though…"

Of course she is; she's Caitlin. She adapts, and she lives. A part of Barry is envious of this ability of hers. She's moved onto a new life already; he can't let go of the one he almost had, the one he gave up, the life that ended because of him…

When he dreams, he sees his mother dying in his arms. He sees Eddie, dead on the ground. He sees Ronnie, in the Singularity.

All those people he failed…

"Alright," he says thickly, "one more game."

Cisco's eyes widen marginally – that wide-eyed look he's used to seeing on his friend's face. "Really?"

"Sure, but only one more. I need sleep."

Cisco nods quickly, and a new game is started.

Five hours of sleep will be enough, right?

He gets comfortable on the couch, half sprawled all on it with his legs dangling over the edge so his shoes aren't on it. He rarely takes his shoes off anymore, unless he's really in bed, because who knows when he will be needed to dash out of here in a flash? It's just easier in the long run to keep them on unless he's turning in for the night.

He half-heartedly thinks of sleep as the images on the flatscreen TV begin to blur and his auto-shotgun shoots zombies in the face. Cisco sits on the floor in front of him, with his back against the couch next to Barry's legs, his own legs stretched out in front of him. As they continue playing, Cisco's head starts to tilt ever-so-slightly, and his reaction time shooting zombies begins to slow.

Barry's own head is resting against the arm of the couch; his eyes begin to close, heavy with the desire of sleep.

He's not sure if they finished the game; he just knows he's actually comfortable, and Cisco's side is warm against his one leg.

Sleep claims him.

xXx

He wakes to the sound of his phone blaring, a back-up alarm in case he sleeps through his alarm clock, since his phone is always near him. His eyes snap open, and he realizes he's at an odd angle and there's a bit of a kink in his neck. Wincing, he sits up, otherwise… _refreshed_. Hmm. Interesting.

He looks around, noticing he's on Cisco's couch. Cisco is there, too; not on the couch, but leaning against it and all but _cuddled_ into Barry's leg, holding it hostage. There is little feeling in said leg right now, and there goes his hopes of dashing out before Cisco wakes, and just his hopes of dashing out in general. Running with a leg that's asleep isn't the best idea; it often leads to twisting his ankle at odd angles and nearly snapping the bone, or just running into walls.

 _Yeah, not happening today._

He pulls his phone free from beneath him due to the odd angle at which he was resting, and sees that he's due at work in ten minutes.

 _And I still need to go home and change, and shower._

Which is why he wanted to go home last night.

He sighs.

His hand reaches out and grabs Cisco's arm, giving him a shake. "Cisco, hey, wake up."

Cisco mumbles something incoherent and _snuggles_ further into his leg. Barry contemplates snapping a photo as blackmail material; it could be useful, and amusing. The old Barry would have. Since the Singularity, though…

"Cisco, wake up," he says again, louder this time, shaking him once more. "Hey. Hey, Cisco!"

Cisco's eyes snap open as he unconsciously tightens his death hold on Barry's leg. "Wha-? Barry?" He turns his head enough to peer at Barry.

The dark rings around his eyes are less prominent, Barry's happy to note.

"Hey, we gotta be at work in ten minutes," he tells his friend. "And please, I'm kind of attached to that leg."

Cisco realizes what he's snuggling as his pillow, and instantly releases said leg. Barry groans and attempts to move his leg; it barely twitches. He scowls at Cisco, who at least looks a little sheepish, rubbing awkwardly at the back of his neck.

"Uh, sorry?" Cisco pauses then. "Wait – I didn't, uh – I didn't wake you up screaming, did I?"

"You scream in your sleep?" Barry asks, quirking a brow.

"I'll take that as a 'no'."

"You didn't," Barry agrees, "but that doesn't answer my question."

Cisco sighs, looking away. "Nightmares," he replies. "Remember?"

"Oh. Well, you didn't scream last night. No nightmares?"

Cisco pauses, before a touch of awe enters his voice. "None," he says.

Barry smiles. "That's good. Now, I gotta go home and shower and get ready for work."

Cisco looks at the digital clock beneath the TV. "Five minutes until work, dude. Might as well do it here, because the only way I'm getting there on time is…"

"If I take you," Barry sighs, scrubbing a hand across his face.

"Just like old times." The smile is evident in Cisco's voice.

"Yeah, yeah, hurry and get ready, I'm stealing your shower."

"You little klepto."

Barry rolls his eyes and stands, testing his half-asleep leg tentatively, before he disappears from the room in a flash.

xXx

It's the fear and shock of it all that lingers, Cisco decides. One would think it would be the pain of having a vibrating hand shoved into your heart, but no, it's the shock and fear. Every time he sees it in his dreams – and see it often he does, as this is happening almost every night since the Singularity – he remembers the fear as he watched Wells' – _no,_ he corrects himself, _Eobard Thawne's_ – hand start to vibrate, and then the shock as it actually happened. The pain was severe but brief, giving way to a haze of white.

 _Eobard_ called him a son, said he was fond of him, and then killed him.

And that's what gets to him the most.

He looked up to Wells – _Eobard, dammit_ – like a father. The man took him under his wing at a rough time of his life, mentored him, taught him so much, gave him a place where he felt like he actually _belonged_ …

And then in an instant, that very same man took all of that away from him. He killed him so _easily_. And Cisco remembers the terror he felt then, and then the shock as it actually happened. It overshadows the pain.

He wakes every night in a cold sweat, gasping and whimpering as he chokes for breath. Hours later he's still shaky, and there is no hope for more sleep.

The only night he really had a reprieve from the nightmares was when Barry was here and they fell asleep playing video games. That was three days ago. Since then, it's been back to nightmares.

He's tried sleeping in the living room, against the couch or on it, like he did when Barry was there, but it doesn't work. He still wakes in a cold sweat and is unable to catch his breath. Sometimes it's the scream that wakes him; sometimes the scream is caught in his throat.

He's exhausted. His head hurts from lack of sleep. His eyes burn.

He doesn't remember pressing the speed dial for Barry's number, and doesn't even realize there's a phone pressed to his ear until he hears Barry's smooth, "Hey, Cisco."

He relaxes marginally. "Uh, hi, Barry," he says stupidly.

 _C'mon, you're a genius, and that's all you've got?_

"It's late?" Barry says as a question.

Cisco sighs. "Yeah, uh, couldn't sleep. I didn't… Did I wake you?"

"Nah, couldn't sleep either," Barry admits, and Cisco remembers how Barry admitted to having nightmares, too. "Nightmares?"

"Yeah… You?"

"Yep."

"Zombies?"

"Sure." This time when Barry speaks, it's not through the phone, but right behind him. Cisco is grinning before he even turns around, and Barry joins him on the couch, pocketing his phone.

Cisco pockets his phone as well, holding out the second controller for Barry.

xXx

"We've gotta stop doing this," Barry groans the next morning over a cup of coffee in Cisco's kitchen, wincing as he turns his head this way and that way. They slept once more on the couch, in a tangled mess, against opposite arm rests. Cisco has a kink in his neck and knows Barry has one as well.

Cisco can't bring himself to agree with Barry, though; once again, he didn't have any nightmares last night, and he actually slept well. He feels refreshed and more alert today than he has in a long time.

"Hungry?" he asks as a distraction, both from his thoughts and Barry's attempts at finishing his coffee. They both have the day off, though Barry's on-call.

"Ugh, you have no idea," Barry sighs. "Food, yes?"

"I don't have much here…" Cisco says, since he hasn't really been to the grocery store in a while now. He usually eats at the station, or picks something up on his way home from work, or doesn't eat at all.

"We'll order something, then. I don't feel like getting stared at for my appetite today."

Cisco hides a smirk. Barry eats a lot; he has to, due to his fast metabolism. He burns through calories like no one's business. It's earned him quite a few odd looks when they go eat at restaurants, if he hasn't eaten beforehand so the hunger is less prominent.

Cisco orders six pizzas – one for himself, and five for Barry. They've slept in today; it's past noon, but then they didn't quite fall asleep until roughly six this morning, so that's to be expected. Barry promises to pay him back, like always; Cisco declines, and says it's the least he can do since Barry came over to distract him with video games last night.

It doesn't take long for the food to arrive; roughly forty minutes. By this time, the kitchen table is cleared off and they are prepared to inhale the pizzas. It's easy to tell how hungry Barry is by how quickly he eats; Cisco blinks and the first pizza is gone, and the speedster starts on the second. He doesn't slow down until the third one, and Cisco snickers and works on his second _slice_ of pizza.

Barry sits back contentedly and tosses him a small smile, now that the food fever has abated and his stomach – and metabolism – is mostly sated. He eats more slowly, allowing time for conversation.

"So, about these nightmares…"

Cisco nearly chokes on his food. "What?"

Barry laughs. "I'm just asking, dude. You don't have to tell me."

Cisco knows that, and that's part of what he likes about Barry. He's understanding, and he knows Cisco will tell him when he's ready, so he doesn't push.

"I sleep better when I'm not alone," Cisco admits with a sigh, looking back down at his food.

"Oh?"

"Yeah."

"Oh. Um. Me too," Barry admits a little sheepishly, and Cisco drags his gaze back toward the speedster.

"Oh?" he asks, quirking a brow.

Barry's face reddens. There's a reason some people call him the 'Scarlet' Speedster, other than his red suit. "Uh, yeah, well, when I was little I was afraid of the dark, but having someone nearby made it easier. I guess I never got over that – the having someone near me part, I mean, not the fear of the dark, but the dark is still not great, you know, so-"

Cisco laughs. It's been a while since he's seen Barry in full-blown ramble mode. He's missed this, he realizes. He's missed his friend. Lately, since the Singularity, Barry has closed himself off from the others, and that includes Cisco. They meet up occasionally for video games, but this distance between them is more than little unnerving. Cisco is used to seeing Barry every day at STAR Labs – a place he hasn't visited since the Singularity, since Barry kicked him out.

Barry wants to be on his own, when he's the Flash. Cisco can respect that, and is waiting for it to blow over, but it's been over a month and things haven't gotten better.

Barry goes quiet. "Sorry, I was, uh… rambling again, huh?"

"It's cute," Cisco says without thinking, and Barry blushes again.

"It's silly," the speedster replies.

"It's you."

They both go quiet for a moment.

"How much did this cost you?" Barry finally asks once they are finished eating. "I'll pay you back."

"Nah, dude, it's cool," Cisco tells him.

He's the one who called Barry, after all; it's only fair that he buys breakfast. Or lunch. Whatever.

Barry's cell beeps then, an alert of some kind. He pulls it out and scowls at the screen, before pushing to his feet.

"What's up?" Cisco asks, like a good friend should when they see that expression on their best friend's face.

"Uh, nothing, just, uh – Flash business," Barry says quickly, already pocketing his phone.

Flash business.

Cisco remembers when that used to be _his_ business, as well. He misses those days.

"I can help," he offers.

Already Barry's shaking his head. "Uh, no, it's just – a fire. I can get them out. I'll, uh, see you later. Thanks for breakfast, man."

And then he's gone in a flash.

Cisco eyes the empty boxes of pizza and sighs.

xXx

Two nights later, Barry's back, but Cisco didn't call him.

Instead he looks up from his TV as Barry collapses in front of him, having phased through the door and into the apartment. There's blood immediately on the floor, staining his beige carpet and there's no hope of that stain ever coming out. Cisco jumps to his feet, heart in his throat as he darts toward his friend as fast as he can.

"Barry, what happened?" he all but shouts.

Barry's eyes are glazed. Cisco tears the top half of the mask off, checking his friend's pupils. Yep, unequal. Great.

"You've got a concussion, Barry."

"Tired," Barry mutters.

"What happened? Barry?"

"Don' call anyone…" the speedster mumbles.

"What? But Caitlin-"

Barry's eyes fall shut and he goes motionless, falling against Cisco. Cisco catches his friend, perhaps holding on a little too tightly, and then attempts to maneuver them closer to the couch so he can at least lean Barry against it and get a better look at whatever is bleeding so much.

Propping the speedster up against the couch, he runs his hands down his friend's body for purely medical reasons. The suit is skin tight; he feels no breaks, so that's good. No broken bones to be found so far. But there's a gaping, jagged hole in Barry's side which is spewing blood onto Cisco's carpet. It appears as though it's already trying to heal, the blood flow slowing somewhat, but it's still a _hole in Barry's side_ , and that won't do.

His first thought is to call Caitlin. She's Barry's physician. Or, rather, she was. Now she's going to be working at Mercury Labs. Everyone got new lives after the Singularity. She's not Barry's doctor anymore. But taking him to a normal hospital could expose who he is. Cisco helped Caitlin enough to know a few things, so he decides to do as Barry said and not tell anyone – for now.

He grabs the med kit from the bathroom and goes about disinfecting the wound, cutting away pieces of his suit in the process. He mourns the loss of this suit, but he still has one left, and he can make more suits with different variations. Perhaps that brighter red color the future version had shown, in that newspaper; and with the white symbol which stood out.

Thinking about possible suit ideas could only distract him so much. He had to keep telling himself it was just blood on his hands, not _Barry's_. Not his friend's.

 _This is crazy, I'm not a doctor, Barry._

But Barry chose to come _here_ when he was hurt.

And that has to mean something.

Somewhere deep down, Cisco is warm.

xXx

Barry wakes warm and confused. There's a weight on his chest that's not his own. After a few dizzying blinks, he realizes he's asleep on Cisco's couch again, and Cisco is on the couch with him, with his head on his chest. It looks like the other man just toppled over at some point, and that's how he landed. It's cute.

Barry smirks faintly, wishing he could reach his phone for blackmail material, but sadly Cisco is laying on-

Wait.

Barry looks down at himself again.

He's not wearing a shirt.

His phone isn't against his hip.

Is he even wearing pants?

Cisco is laying on top of the cover, so there's that, at least, but it's still embarrassing. He looks around the room and finds his Flash suit on the floor in a crumpled heap, which is really unlike Cisco. Cisco loves that suit. It's _their_ suit after all.

His stomach growls; he's absolutely _starving_ , like his stomach is trying to eat itself. Yesterday is a confused blur; all his thoughts are focused on is food. Food. Need food. Now.

He tries to slip out from under Cisco without waking his friend.

He fails, and topples off the couch as Cisco gives a surprised "ack!" and lands on the cushions where Barry previously lay. His legs don't want to work properly; everything is stiff and painful but he doesn't care. Food. Food. _Food_.

His stomach is gnawing on itself.

He's dizzy, his vision blurred. That should be important. He doesn't care.

He crawls toward Cisco's kitchen by the time his friend is finally sitting up, asking what he's doing.

"Uh, Barry? What…?"

"Food," he all but groans, lifting himself up by Cisco's counter. The world spins. His grip falters. He topples.

Cisco catches him. Wow. When'd he get so fast?

He smiles goofily. His lips feel detached. Food. Need food.

"H _ungryyy_ ," he breathes as he leans into Cisco's warm hold.

Cisco nearly drops him. "Uh, Barry – I don't have super strength and you're taller than me, so just, uh-"

But he manages to drag Barry out of the kitchen area. Barry whines pathetically.

"No – food!"

Later, he'll be embarrassed by how petulant he sounds, but right now, this is vital.

The hunger is a pain on its own.

"I know," Cisco says calmly, soothingly, as he pushes Barry into a sitting position on the couch. "I know, dude, I'm gonna fix it. Just wait here and don't move."

He takes two steps away, then spins back around like he thinks Barry might have vanished. Barry pushes out his lower lip. He's so hungry.

"Give me ten minutes," Cisco assures him. "Ten minutes, and you can eat. Stay there. Don't move. No super speed."

Barry sighs and sits back against the cushions. It's incredibly hard to do so; his stomach is growling so very loudly. Surely the neighbors can hear it. They're going to hear it growling and come investigate and find out he's the Flash.

"Barry! Sit down!" Cisco says from the kitchen, and Barry sinks back onto the couch cushions with a dejected sigh. "Five more minutes."

Five minutes. He can do this. He can do this. He can-

 _I'm so hungry…_

Time moves so slowly when you're a speedster who's starving. He can't remember being this hungry before.

 _Why now…?_

"Okay, here you go," Cisco says, and suddenly there's pancakes in front of Barry.

Barry inhales them in a few seconds. More are placed in front of him, and he eats those as well. A third helping – gone, too, but slower this time, so he can enjoy the taste. Cisco makes good pancakes. The haze is starting to leave his mind.

Cisco's in the kitchen again, fixing more pancakes. "Five more minutes," his friend promises.

Barry sighs happily, licking his fork clean. "Thanks, Cisco."

"You're coherent now?" Cisco asks, a little uneasily.

Barry frowns. "What do you mean?"

"Uh – do you not remember the past twenty minutes?"

"Um…?"

It's all a hunger-fueled haze.

"I've never seen you like that before," Cisco says. "I mean – I know you get hungry when you run a lot and your blood sugar gets low, but this was – crazy. Even for us."

He brings over the rest of the pancakes, and Barry begins to eat them – slowly, so he can enjoy them, and think about what Cisco is saying.

Slowly, yesterday comes back to him. The attack, the fight, the injury.

"I get more hungry when I'm running while injured," Barry tells him. "I just… I don't know. Usually I run to STAR Labs afterward, you know? But – well, I mean, everything's changed, so…"

Cisco nods like he finally understands. "Usually Caitlin takes care of you and hooks you up to IVs," he says, like it makes sense. "Now that everyone's, well, gone from STAR Labs, you got hurt and came here and didn't have any IVs, so you woke up starving."

Barry nods; that makes sense, he supposes. "Yeah. Sorry."

"It's fine, I'm glad, uh – I'm glad you trusted me enough to come here," Cisco says, carefully avoiding his gaze, and Barry frowns.

"Why wouldn't I trust you?"

Cisco shrugs. "You just seem… distant these days, man. Ever since the Singularity…"

And Barry can't refute that, because it's absolutely true. He wants to keep his friends out of his Flash business; it's too dangerous for them. He won't lose anyone else.

"I still trust you," Barry says. "And I'll try not to be, uh, as distant."

He makes no promises, but he can try. He does miss his friends. He does miss hanging out with Cisco all the time like they used to, before Wells was revealed as the Reverse Flash and everything.

"And next time you show up injured," Cisco says with a touch of his usual humor, "I'll be sure to have a lot of food on standby."

Barry smiles.

It's all a learning process, he thinks.

Speaking of process…

He finally looks down at himself again. He's wearing a pair of shorts and nothing else.

His face burns.

Cisco snickers. "Yeah, about that…"

Barry runs out in a flash before he can be more embarrassed.

Also part of the learning process: Keep clothes at Cisco's, just in case he needs to run there in his Flash suit.

xXx

It's a day later when Barry shows back up at Cisco's, with clothes tucked under his arm and a pillow in his other hand. They play video games until late into the night, and then Barry sleeps on the couch and Cisco sleeps in his room.

He wakes hours later, a scream lodged in his throat, and crawls out of bed. The apartment is dark and silent. As he exits the bedroom he can hear harsh breaths from the living room, and there's Barry, hopelessly tangled in his covers, tossing his head this way and that, and Cisco knows he's not the only one who's having a nightmare tonight.

He sighs, scrubbing a hand across his face, before he reaches out and grabs Barry's shoulder to wake him from the nightmare.

Barry's eyes snap open the minute Cisco's hand makes contact with him, and then he's halfway across the room before Cisco can blink. Cisco turns and finds Barry in the corner, eyes wide and wild, breaths ragged and raw.

"Hey, easy," Cisco says calmly, holding his hands up to show he's harmless, "it's just me. Nightmare?"

Barry takes in a few slow breaths, recognition dawning in his eyes, as he steps away from the wall. "Oh, uh, hi. Yeah, nightmare. Um… Did I wake you?"

Cisco shakes his head. "Nightmare of my own," he says quietly. Before, he would have shrugged and said he was fine, but he doesn't like lying to Barry, or keeping things from Barry. Plus, Barry understands; he has nightmares, too, so hiding his own would be silly.

"Oh," Barry breathes, running a hand through his disheveled brunette hair. "That's, um… Wow. Okay. That sucked."

"Tell me about it," Cisco says. He can't exactly remember what his nightmare was about, but he knows it was bad. He's actually happy he can't remember the details.

Barry sits on the edge of the couch. Cisco joins him. For a long moment there is silence.

"Well, I'm not getting back to sleep for a while. Zombies?" Cisco asks.

Barry nods instantly.

xXx

They fall asleep tangled on the couch, somehow.

There are no dreams.

xXx

For the next three nights they sleep like that on the couch – by accident, of course. They stay up as late as they can watching TV or playing games, and then before they know it, they're waking hours later in a tangled mess on the small couch.

Barry awkwardly disentangles himself and disappears from the apartment every morning, bidding Cisco a quick farewell. Cisco will see him later at the station, at a crime scene, but they do not speak of it. There's nothing to talk about.

Although if Cisco's being honest with himself, he's going to have to invest in a larger, more comfortable couch, and more permanent blankets if this is going to continue to be a thing.

Then he gets an idea.

He doesn't ask if Barry's coming over tonight as well; it's something he knows deep down but can't explain how he knows it's fact and not assumption. There's an unspoken rule in the air between them and he knows Barry will be here around eight at night, sometimes with pizza. After he's done his rounds through the city to make sure things are safe.

And he shows up at 8:07, but he's always late. For someone with super speed, how does that even work?

He doesn't have pizzas today, but he has a new change of clothes and his hair is curly from his shower, the wind having dried it on the way over here. Cisco shakes his head and looks at the growing pile of Barry's clothes near the couch. He wonders if the speedster even notices.

Barry's left a pillow here, as well as three different outfits, and sleeping clothes. There's even spare running shoes in Cisco's closet. Barry's always got the Flash suit with him these days, it seems, so he doesn't have to worry about having that laying on his floor too.

"Here's the deal," Cisco says with false bravado, inwardly terrified as Barry's eyes focus on him, "if this is going to be a nightly thing, we aren't sleeping on the couch."

Barry blinks at him. "Um," he says intelligently.

Cisco smirks. "Help me move this to the bedroom," he says, gesturing at the flatscreen TV and the TV stand it is resting on.

Barry stares at him for a moment, before he nods once and then is at his side in a flash, easily helping lift the TV. Together, they carry it into the bedroom and get it set up correctly, and positioned properly so it can easily be seen when one is laying down in bed.

Then they settle down to watch TV and play video games, as awesome people are want to do.

They never planned to start sleeping together, but if they're going to, _as friends_ , then the bed is far more comfortable.

Cisco isn't complaining.

And from the look on Barry's face, he isn't either.


End file.
